Synopsis

Don’t Forget the Diver is the 22nd adapted radio episode, and the first of the second radio series (after the Christmas special episode, “Present Arms”), of Dad's Army. The synopsis remains virtually unchanged from the TV episode, although there are a few minor changes in terms of actions performed by certain characters.

Plot

The Walmington-on-Sea platoon is to participate in an exercise where it is their task to plant a “bomb” inside a windmill containing Captain Square and members of the Eastgate platoon.

Captain Mainwaring has barely started briefing the men when the Verger comes in with the intention of doing some dusting, using as an excuse that “His Reverence” (the Vicar) wants it done. Though preferring not to have any distractions or interruptions, Mainwaring allows the Verger to proceed but is frustrated at his slow pace and orders him to go into the side office. Once there, the Verger, having been stung by Lance-Corporal Jones’s sarcastic remark about his “not having any trouble” maintaining a “miserable face” on the grounds that it is not possible to be a verger with a happy one, immediately rings Captain Square. It turns out that the Verger has been deliberately spying on Mainwaring’s platoon on Square’s behalf. When the Verger reports that Mainwaring’s men intend to dress up as bushes and move across open ground to the windmill, Square laughs derisively, saying “Mainwaring must be slipping!” Nevertheless, the C.O. of the Eastgate platoon takes him at his word.

However, the Verger makes the phone call before he has had the opportunity to listen to the rest of the briefing, during which Frazer, memorably, tells the tale, with the usual emotionalism in his voice, of how his friend, Wally Stewart, while underwater in the “South Seas” in an enormous diving suit, struggled against a giant squid, which Frazer allegedly killed by “plunging a knife between the eyes”, to which Jones remarks that “he [Wally] mustn’t have liked that!” Unfortunately, Wally died of the “bends”, since he had been brought back up to the surface too quickly, and made Frazer promise to forward his possessions to his mother – even if he had only the diving suit, which he then allegedly bought from Wally’s mother for ten shillings. Having allowed him to come to the end of his narrative, an unusually patient Mainwaring gives the deadpan pay-off line, “I therefore take it you’ve got a diving suit.”

The men simulate what they are going to do in the exercise, but Godfrey “nips outside” for a few minutes once he had heard Jones say “Trickle, trickle” repeatedly in order to give the impression that he was hiding in the false log being floated down the river to the windmill. Pike expresses concern to Mainwaring that Frazer’s face is turning blue in his pressurized diving suit even if Wilson keeps pumping air into it. Mainwaring soon discovers why: “Pike! You’re standing on his air pipe!!!”

On the appointed day, Square is looking out from his vantage point in the windmill as is his (unidentified) sergeant. Mainwaring signals via field telephone to Pike, who is dressed as a scarecrow, to start the diversion using a bird warbler. However, although Godfrey then sends a flock of sheep with tin helmets on into the field within Square’s field of vision, Pike is quickly surrounded by many birds, which have been attracted by the warbler. The Verger, again spying for Square, rings to tell him that Mainwaring’s men are apparently dressed as sheep with tin helmets on, only to be off-handedly dismissed by the upper-crust officer, who then remarks (to his sergeant, perhaps) that “he’s had too much communion wine!”

Mainwaring rings Pike to enquire on progress, but he reprimands the private for allegedly being told to “Go away!” when he was actually referring to the birds. Mainwaring then concedes openly to Pike that he had not thought about the consequences of using the warbler, but Pike manages to tell him that Jones, with the help of Frazer in the diving suit, has, thanks to him being concealed in the false log, reached the windmill.

Jones climbs the ladder at the side of the mill when the simulated bomb, an old alarm clock, goes off. The lance-corporal realizes that he may be discovered and throws the “bomb” into the mill, only for it to break apart. Mainwaring becomes aware of what is going on when Jones then overbalances and falls onto the water-wheel and mutters to Wilson, “He’s always had an over-inflated sense of drama.” Sensing that Jones has succeeded in his mission, Mainwaring and Wilson rush to the windmill “to accept Square’s surrender”. However, the C.O. of the Eastgate platoon refuses on the (quite valid) grounds that “had it been a real bomb, he [Jones] would’ve been blown to kingdom come!” Jones blurts out, “But I haven’t been blown to kingdom come, I’m on the water-wheel and it’s about to move!” Mainwaring dismisses Jones’s concerns about the possibility of the water-wheel moving when, not surprisingly, it does, and takes Jones round and round, including, of course, briefly underwater during each rotation. All the while, however, Mainwaring and Square are arguing like a couple of children and pay no attention to the corporal in his predicament.

Cast

Only two guest actors appeared in this radio episode, namely Edward Sinclair

Edward Sinclair

Edward "Teddy" Sinclair was a British actor most famous for his role as the verger Maurice Yeatman in Dad's Army. He also made appearances in Z Cars and Danger Man.Edward's father was the son of a stage actor who died when he was 14...

 as The Verger and the actor who played Square’s sergeant.